Adjusting Your Life to Your New Normal

Gone Shopping

Never pay full price for anything you can get for a discount!

That’s one of my mantras. I have repeated those words many times since high school, and it has served me well through college, young adulthood, and throughout all of my careers. And it is because I have always lived like this that I was also able to survive like this as I went through an economic and career shift in my life. Why else do you think I grab my water bucket and try to save the free water coming down from the sky — a blessing few people take advantage of — rather than pay more on municipal water to keep my herb and vegetable gardens alive and growing!

l guess that’s why it surprises me when some people seem to go out of their way NOT to save money, wait for a discount, or seek out an incredible deal. One of the best ways to catch raindrops in your water bucket is to have patience. Curb your desire to fulfill a perceived need through instant gratification. That sundress you just “have to have” when you see it on Easter, will be reduced by more than 50% before Independence Day. And in most geographic locations, that still leaves you with over two months of wear in the same year; and another two seasons of use the next year, and perhaps even the year after that.

I had an emergency one summer; an unexpected funeral, and I didn’t have any shoes to go with the dress I was planning to wear. On a hope and a prayer, I stopped at a shoe store on the way to my destination and found a pair of white, open toe shoes that were retailed at $45.00 but at this discount shoe store, was priced at $29.99. Still out of the price range I was willing to pay for shoes I would probably not get much wear from, I got ready to put them down when I noticed that they had a sales tag with the price of only $14.98 on them. That was more my style, which I was willing to pay; except there’s more! I came through the doors at exactly the right time because that day, they were running a special for 50% off all summer shoes — and it was still JUNE! So I ended up paying only $8.00 for a pair of $45.00 white, high heel, open toe summer shoes!